Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Tuesday's Tips - Controlling those blog tags and labels

For several months I have been highly irritated with the tags that I have used on this blog. It's my own fault, I have over 1600 posts and about 30 posts scheduled and another 60 in draft.

Tags or labels as blogger calls them are provided so that you can streamline your search for particular posts, so if I look at genealogy I can see that there are over 190 posts and I tend to cross reference mine to Geneabloggers as I often link in to various day prompts.

Over the course of 10 years, things have got a little out of control and I need to really make some changes. I have a search box which does a grand job of locating stuff.

When I have written things and I have to use the search facility to find them, then things need to be changed.

I have lots of labels and am too lazy to go through them all and the blog facility is fiddly and I don't particularly like it. The alternative is to edit the tags facility and instead of viewing all, allow those that are the most used to be visible. The search box will plug any gaps. It is not perfect, but I really do not want to be wasting hours when I want to use the time for other things.

So in addition to that I am going to go back through some of the earlier posts, as the mood takes me and tweak the tags and share to Google+ thus giving some of those older posts an airing.

If you have any suggestions please share them, and in the meantime, I will leave you with my Tuesday's Tip - choose your tag or label wisely!

5 comments:

I found that my search box missed some important posts, and I was told by another blogger that this is a known problem. On one of my blogs (Queensland Genealogy) I now use labels (keywords) plus 'categories' (which I set up as a 'Link List' gadget). I will (when time permits) switch to that system on my other blogs too.

Thanks for that Judy. I try and give lots of labels, but that was unwieldy. I might need to have a rethink and do a test on the search. Why is it when you just think you have it sorted, you realise you haven't.

Frustrating, isn't it?! My top priority is to check the search engine optimisation of my blog posts. I am working my way through my old posts, adding the 'description' metatag (and making sure that the description includes keywords) and adding 'alt' tags (with keywords) to image properties. Luckily Blogger makes that easy. It all takes time though!

I use both keywords/tags and categories, but I'm sure there are some that are not appropriately linked -much easier to see when you're doing A to Z of something and only have 24 posts when searching ;-)

In WP you do get to use both, which initially I didn't "get" I do now though after some reflection. In blog it is easier perhaps label or don't! Having started to go back and re-label I can see the benefit.

I am not that organised Pauleen, I just realised too late that a good description helps Google and search engines display your blog in the search results easier - live and learn I guess!

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About Me

I am a Surrey girl, who is very proud of her roots, which go back almost 300 years in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. I currently live in the West Country of England, but Surrey is always home! I am also half Italian and thus have an interest in Italian culture and genealogy.

After a career in pharmacy management spanning more than 20 years, I made the decision to look at my options as to where my professional life was heading. I wanted to expand my work portfolio within the training and writing arena; to utilise my historical and research skills along with other qualifications and years of experience. I created The Book of Me, Written by You back in the Autumn of 2012. It threads together the focus of my interests and qualifications. Enabling me to encourage others to think beyond the obvious as we analyse our own lives and those of our close family members.

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The material, both written and photographic on these pages is the copyright of Julie Goucher & Anglers Rest unless stated. Material on this site may be used for personal reference only. If you wish to use any of the material on this site for other means, please seek the written permission of Julie Goucher & Anglers Rest.